In philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, a core ontology is a basic and minimal ontology

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

 consisting only of the minimal concepts required to understand the other concepts. It must be based on a core glossary in some human

Human

Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

 language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

 so humans can comprehend the concepts and distinctions made. Each natural language tends to rely on its own conceptual metaphor

Conceptual metaphor

In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another, for example, understanding quantity in terms of directionality . A conceptual domain can be any coherent organization of human experience...

 structure, and so tends to have its own core ontology (according to W. V. Quine). It could be said also to represent the moral core of a human linguistic

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

, and to self-correct so as to better represent core cultural ideas.

Such a core ontology is a key pre-requisite to a more complete foundation ontology, or a more general philosophical sense of ontology. Most applicable to teaching

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, e.g. the Longmans defining dictionary of the simplest meanings of 2,000 English words is used to define the 4,000 most basic English idiom

Idiom

Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...

s -- this is a core glossary of the English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, which permits access to the core ontology (the idioms).

Core ontologies is a concept that is used in information science as well. For example the CIDOC-CRM

CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model

The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model provides an extensible ontology for concepts and information in cultural heritage and museum documentation. It is the international standard for the controlled exchange of cultural heritage information...

is referred to as a core ontology.